Influenza Vaccine Mandates
I have been involved in infection control and in what is now called quality for my career. Since infection control issues can occur in any department, my job involves being on numerous quality related committees (Medical Executive, Pharmacy and Therapeutics, etc) where I have witnessed or participat…

Uff Da! The Mayo Clinic Shills for Snake Oil
A couple of weeks ago, in a review of the Mayo Clinic Book of Home Remedies, Harriet Hall expressed relief that she hadn’t found any “questionable recommendations for complementary & alternative medicine (CAM) treatments” in that book:
Since “quackademic” medicine is infiltrating our b…

Skepticamp: Invading the Great White North on October 23
Are you frustrated by the prevalence of pseudoscience in medicine? Are you interested in critical thinking and science? Is SBM your rational refuge? Want to meet like-minded science advocates? On October 23, 2010 four Skepticamps will take place across Canada. If you enjoy reading this blog, you&…

Germ theory denialism: A major strain in “alt-med” thought
The longer I’m in this whole science-based medicine thing, not to mention the whole skepticism thing, the more I realize that no form of science is immune to woo. To move away from medicine just for a moment, even though I lament just how many people do not accept evolution, for example, I can…

Credulity about acupuncture infiltrates the New England Journal of Medicine
One of the things that disturbs me the most about where medicine is going is the infiltration of quackery into academic medicine. So prevalent is this unfortunate phenomenon that Doctor RW even coined a truly apt term for it: Quackademic medicine. In essence, pseudoscientific and even prescientific …

Open Letter to Dr. Josephine Briggs
Josephine P. Briggs, M.D.
Director, National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine
Dear Dr. Briggs,
As you know, we’ve met twice. The first time was at the Yale “Integrative Medicine” Symposium in March. The second was in April, when Drs. Novella, Gorski and I met with …

Cancer Treatment Centers of America and “naturopathic oncology”
EDITOR’S NOTICE: NOTE THE DISCLAIMER.
On “wholistic” medicine
If there’s one aspect of so-called “alternative medicine” and “complementary and alternative medicine” (CAM) is that its practitioners tout as being a huge advantage over what they often re…

No Education? No Training? No License? No Problem!
When Daniel David Palmer, the inventor of chiropractic, and his acolytes first took up the practice of chiropractic, around the turn of the last century, they were jailed for the unlicensed practice of medicine. If history had left them there, we might not be fighting a continuing battle with the ps…